“I suppose it had, Jim,” she said more seriously.  “But what do you think, my boy?  You know there are disadvantages in it.  There will be a good deal of talk about my taking this showman’s grandchild, and some of the farmers’ wives won’t like it.”

“Then let them dislike it,” James said indignantly.  “The child is as good as their daughters, any day.  Why, I noticed her in church looking like a little lady.  There was not a child there to compare to her.”

“Yes, I have noticed her myself,” Mrs. Walsham said.  “She is a singularly pretty and graceful child; but it will certainly cause remark.”

“Well, mother, you can easily say, what is really the fact, that you naturally felt an interest in her because I picked her out of the water.  Besides, if people make remarks they will soon be tired of that; and if not, I can get into some scrape or other and give them something else to talk about.”

Accordingly, when Sergeant Wilks called on Monday morning for his answer, Mrs. Walsham told him that she had decided to accept his offer.

“You are aware how I am placed,” she said, “and that I cannot give her the care and time which I could wish, and which she ought to have for such a liberal payment as you propose; but you know that beforehand, and you see that for two years’ payments I could not sacrifice my school connection, which I should have to do if I gave her the time I should wish.”

“I understand, madam,” he said, “and I am grateful to you for consenting to take her.  She is getting too old now to wander about with me, and since the narrow escape she had, last time I was here, I have felt anxious whenever she was out of my sight.  It would not suit me to put her in a farm house.  I want her to learn to speak nicely, and I have done my best to teach her; but if she went to a farm house she would be picking up all sorts of country words, and I want her to talk like a little lady.

“So that is settled, ma’m.  I am going on to Exeter from here, and shall get her a stock of clothes there, and will bring her back next Saturday.  Will it suit you to take her then?”

Mrs. Walsham said that would suit very well; and an hour later the sergeant set out from Sidmouth with his box, Aggie trotting alongside, talking continuously.

“But why am I to stop with that lady, grampa, and not to go about with you any more?  I sha’n’t like it.  I like going about, though I get so tired sometimes when you are showing the pictures; and I like being with you.  It isn’t ’cause I have been naughty, is it?  ’Cause I fell out of the boat into the water?  I won’t never get into a boat again, and I didn’t mean to fall out, you know.”

“No, Aggie, it’s not that,” the sergeant said.  “You are always a good girl—­at least, not always, because sometimes you get into passions, you know.  Still, altogether you are a good little girl.  Still, you see, you can’t always be going about the country with me.”